Tiger Woods Master Catch-All Discussion

[Groucho Valentine]

On February 18, 2018 at 3:01 PM, Zeph said:

What's Tiger's biggest motivation these days? Beating Jack? Getting back to winning tournaments? Back to being world's number one? He's set for life in many ways, but obviously loves to compete and win tournaments.

Good question. If he has any competitive drive left, my guess his goal is to win and get the majors record. I wouldnt imagine he cares about bing ranked #1 or just "being out there". He has probably a 4-5 year window left to win more majors, but he needs to have what would be considered a legendary HOF career from this point forward in order to get the record. Dont see it. The younger generation of players dont seem like they have Tiger's drive or mental focus, so maybe there is a opening there. But at 42 i cant see him winning more than 1 or 2 majors before he is done at the absolute best. If he wins another one, it will probably be at Augusta. 

[jbishop15]

2 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Good question. If he has any competitive drive left, my guess his goal is to win and get the majors record. I wouldnt imagine he cares about bing ranked #1 or just "being out there". He has probably a 4-5 year window left to win more majors, but he needs to have what would be considered a legendary HOF career from this point forward in order to get the record. Dont see it. The younger generation of players dont seem like they have Tiger's drive or mental focus, so maybe there is a opening there. But at 42 i cant see him winning more than 1 or 2 majors before he is done at the absolute best. If he wins another one, it will probably be at Augusta. 

I think that the Major record probably does drive him, but I think it's just his general competitive nature. I'm extremely competitive, and often my goal is nothing more than to just be the best at what I'm doing. That feeling doesn't go away. 

[Groucho Valentine]

56 minutes ago, colin007 said:

Gotcha.

I think for me, the double crosses are so weird...trying to hit a big cut and then nukes it dead left? I'm pretty sure I can slice any club in the bag more than 100% of the time.

He's been doing that since his game and body fell apart in 2010. Whenever i can recall seeing him aim his body way left with a wood the ball always seemed it ended up in some other zip code. 

1 minute ago, jbishop15 said:

I think that the Major record probably does drive him, but I think it's just his general competitive nature. I'm extremely competitive, and often my goal is nothing more than to just be the best at what I'm doing. That feeling doesn't go away. 

True. I know that feeling as well. 

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Whenever i can recall seeing him aim his body way left with a wood the ball always seemed it ended up in some other zip code. 

2008 U.S. Open.

[nevets88]

 

[StefanUrkel]

His swing looks amazing. Still the best putter in the game. Sucks what the norwood reaper did

[nevets88]

So how many spots up the OWGR? I think he's in the 550s. Probably gets into the 400s. 

[jbishop15]

33 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

So how many spots up the OWGR? I think he's in the 550s. Probably gets into the 400s. 

TWSpot on Twitter said that he jumped to 385, I think. 

[iacas]

2 hours ago, jbishop15 said:

TWSpot on Twitter said that he jumped to 385, I think. 

http://www.owgr.com/Ranking.aspx?player=Tiger Woods has him at 389.

[onthehunt526]

Anyone think Tiger is going to win this year?

By my math, if he plays only API before the Masters and finishes Top 5, he'd jump into the Top 200. If he won the Masters after that, he'd probably be Top 40s. So he'd be in better position to get into the other World Golf Championships. If he say played Valspar and finished high, and won API and the Masters... Look out we might have a playing vice captain at the Ryder Cup...

Speaking of, anyone have a line on when he would possibly be Ryder Cup captain? Just an educated guess, but my best guess is 2024 at Bethpage Black.

Edited February 26, 2018 by onthehunt526
Hit submit too quickly.

[Zeph]

He's good enough to win tournaments at this point, so he very well might. What might prevent him from winning is not playing as many tournaments.10 years ago, you could gurantee he would win something with his limited schedule, but not so much today.

Some rankings from last week:

SG: Off the tee: 46
SG: Approach: 8
SG: Around the green: 37
SG: Putting: 9
SG: Tee to green: 16
SG: Total: 6
Driving accuracy: 45
Driving distance: 1
Scrambling: T7
GIR: 14
Putts per GIR: T15

Quote

“The last couple days, it felt easy to play tournament golf,” Woods said.

“I didn’t really know what to expect,” Woods said of coming back this year. “My expectations have gone up.”

“I'm just building towards April,” Woods said. “I'm trying to get myself ready for that, and I feel like I'm right on track for that.”

“I had control of my game,” he said.

 

[iacas]

I'm giving the GOAT the benefit of the doubt, @Zeph, on how best to prepare and knowing his body and so on.

Heck, maybe he's happy to just see his kids more, too, and wouldn't play more even if you could guarantee a pair of wins each year if he did so. Maybe he's happy with 1.5 wins a year, or 1, plus seeing his kids more?

[Zeph]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'm giving the GOAT the benefit of the doubt, @Zeph, on how best to prepare and knowing his body and so on.

Heck, maybe he's happy to just see his kids more, too, and wouldn't play more even if you could guarantee a pair of wins each year if he did so. Maybe he's happy with 1.5 wins a year, or 1, plus seeing his kids more?

I didn't mean he's less able to win tournaments by not playing more, but playing more tournaments could lead to more weekends of possibly winning since he can't win a tournament without playing it. Of course, winning an ordinary tournament isn't what he's really after. I'm not faulting him, just pointing out that he could be less likely to win a tournament by not playing as much. Whether that makes him more or less likely to win a major or the tournaments he actually plays, I can't tell either and expect him to figure out the best strategy himself. He would definitely take a major over a bunch of regular events.

[Wally Fairway]

13 hours ago, jbishop15 said:

TWSpot on Twitter said that he jumped to 385, I think. 

 

11 hours ago, iacas said:

http://www.owgr.com/Ranking.aspx?player=Tiger Woods has him at 389.

 

9 hours ago, onthehunt526 said:

Anyone think Tiger is going to win this year?

By my math, if he plays only API before the Masters and finishes Top 5, he'd jump into the Top 200. If he won the Masters after that, he'd probably be Top 40s. So he'd be in better position to get into the other World Golf Championships. If he say played Valspar and finished high, and won API and the Masters... Look out we might have a playing vice captain at the Ryder Cup...

Speaking of, anyone have a line on when he would possibly be Ryder Cup captain? Just an educated guess, but my best guess is 2024 at Bethpage Black.

 

Good of a place as any for me to go on a rant/tangent about the OWGR quirks.
Looking at Tigers rankings it is pretty bad, IMO, that he earned more points for a T9 in the Hero Challenge than he did for his 12 at the Honda Classic and his 2015 Hero 15th is worth more points (unweighted) than his T23 at the Farmers Insurance. Getting points for the Hero Challenge, and the way they hand them out for the WGC match play can skew results for limited field, match play and even not cut events.

Also if you are a fantasy player, here is a tip for you to find players who are "better" than their OWGR ranking. Look for players who have played less than the 40 event minimum divisor. Tiger is an extreme example with only 7 events and 3 of those being MC or WD. His point total of 18.02 is 2.57 points per actual event, but only 0.45 when the minimum events calculation is used, meaning he is playing more like a 40 OWGR indicator. But he has so few events it can be misleading. A better example is Patrick Cantlay with only 18 events, he would rank #7 with 6.69 average points if his actual points per event were used. This is very similar to Spieth in 2013/14 and Rahm last year.

 

[Groucho Valentine]

I only watched the back 9s of tiger over the weekend, but he looked pretty good until he got to those par 3's down the stretch. I think nerves got to him and he made some really poor swings on those holes. His iron control, short game and putting look to be top shelf again. I think he can certainly win this season if he keeps improving off the tee. If he keeps sawing in 8 and 9 irons from 180, he may not even need a driver...

[nevets88]

When is he playing next? Going to guess he's going to take a couple of weeks off. Historically, he's always played Bay Hill I think.

[Groucho Valentine]

My guess is Bay Hill, too. I cant see him playing the off event in Puerto Rico. Theres another one after that in florida i think. I suppose there is a chance he'll pop up at that one. 

[onthehunt526]

1 hour ago, Groucho Valentine said:

My guess is Bay Hill, too. I cant see him playing the off event in Puerto Rico. Theres another one after that in florida i think. I suppose there is a chance he'll pop up at that one. 

I heard he was a "maybe" at Valspar. That's next week. So we'll see I guess.